Good on ya, eh! Air Canada Announces Massive International Expansion

The airline business is a funny world – one that changes at a whim. Last week we were bemoaning the cuts Air Canada was making and the continual transfer of routes to their low cost subsidiary Rouge, much to the chagrin of Star Alliance elites as the airline seemed bent on continuing to dilute their international long haul product.

Well, today they changed that tack a bit, announcing a deluge of new routes to be operated on Air Canada aircraft.

Let’s start with the new flights to be offered out of their main hub at Toronto Pearson International airport (YYZ) – Mumbai and Berlin will be added to their network shortly and from Vancouver International Airport (YVR), Taipei and Nagoya are being topped up to their already impressive Asia-Pacific network from the West Coast city. From French speaking Montreal in Quebec, Algiers and Marseilles will be introduced to cater to passenger traffic to other French speaking countries

The new flights to Mumbai and Taipei will be operated by the state of the art and the newly added Boeing 787-9 aircraft. These are the exact type of routes this aircraft was designed to fly, so it’s great to see airlines actually using them as such.

The newest member of the Air Canada fleet, the 787, will be doing the flights

According to the airline,

Air Canada will be the only carrier to offer non-stop service between Canada and Mumbai and the only Canadian carrier to operate non-stop service to Taipei. These routes will operate year-round with Air Canada’s state-of-the-art Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner. The aircraft feature 30 International Business Class lie-flat seat suites, 21 Premium Economy and 247 Economy Class seats, with upgraded in-flight entertainment at every seat throughout the aircraft.

The other new additions will be on Rouge unfortunately, but apparently with Air Canada ‘mainline’ service. The airline added:

The new seasonal routes to Berlin and Nagoya will be the only non-stop services between these cities and Canada. The service to Algiers will be the only non-stop flight by a Canadian carrier between Montreal and the North African city and the Marseille service will be the only non-stop flight operated by a network carrier between Marseille and North America. All will be operated with an Air Canada Rouge Boeing 767-300ER, featuring Premium Rouge and Economy cabins.

A Rouge 767 lands at Osaka Kansai – the same type of plane that will be operating the other new Air Canada routes

Here’s an overview of the new routes and their schedules, per an Air Canada press release:

Route

Start Date

Aircraft Type

Frequency

Toronto-Mumbai

July 1, 2017

Boeing 787-9 (mainline)

Three-weekly

Vancouver-Taipei

June 8, 2017*

Boeing 787-9 (mainline)

Daily

Montreal-Marseille

June 9, 2017

Boeing 767-300ER (Rouge)

Three-weekly

Vancouver-Nagoya

June 1, 2017

Boeing 767-300ER (Rouge)

Three-weekly**

Toronto-Berlin

June 1, 2017

Boeing 767-300ER (Rouge)

Four-weekly

Montreal-Algiers

June 26, 2017*

Boeing 767-300ER (Rouge)

Four-weekly

*Subject to government approvals.

** Increases to four weekly in August and September

Overall, a good net positive move for the airline and Star fliers based both in the United States and Canada – new nonstop options to secondary cities and one stop options for those based on either the East or West coast of the USA. Flights are going on sale immediately and one-stop deals are being marketed from cities such as New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver and Detroit – keep your eyes out for when these deals come out because they’ll be easy on the wallet, especially on the Rouge flights!